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Pigeons have been taught how to
detect breast cancer -- with an accuracy rate that surpasses humans -- and in the process have inspired ideas about how to better teach humans how
to visually detect cancer.
Researchers from the University of
California Davis, the University of Iowa, and Emory University published a
paper last month detailing how they trained pigeons -- Columba livia, commonly called rock doves, to be precise -- to detect
cancerous cells. The birds attained an accuracy rate of 85%, higher than the accuracy
of humans doing the task (84%), the Chicago
Tribune reported. (Also see the Wall
Street Journal for more coverage.)
And when four pigeons were tested on the image and
their results combined (“flocksourcing”?), the birds were 99% accurate in
identifying cancerous cells.
The researchers also found that while
the pigeons had high-accuracy results when looking at slides from tissue
samples, they were not able to learn how to accurately identify signs of cancer
when loo…

Authored by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, the Photonics for a Better World blog focuses on research news and the many ways technologies are applied to advance science and improve quality of life, and on the people who make that happen.